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Economics frequently serves as an advisory discipline to policymakers, bolstered in part by its claims to a unified intellectual framework and high disciplinary consensus. Recent research challenges this perspective, providing empirical evidence that economists' professional opinions are divided by ideological commitments to either free markets on one hand or state intervention on the other. We investigate the influence of ideology in economics by examining the relation between economists' ideological commitments and the certainty with which they express their expert opinions. To examine this relationship, we analyze data from the Initiative on Global Markets Economic Experts Panel, a unique survey of 51 economists at seven elite American universities. Our results suggest that economists with ideologically patterned views report higher levels of certainty in their opinions than their less ideologically consistent peers, but this boost in confidence is limited to topics that closely pertain to the free market versus interventionism divide.

This text reflects upon the pragmatics of communication in relation with the use of language and meaning. It affirms that language’s use directs human action towards some semantical phaenomena, which, in turn, motivate humans and their attitudes and capabilities. Thus, language is a powerful construction of reality, for its capability of constellation and capture of forms, creating human attitudes towards new visions of reality. In this process, advance in knowledge and science, the discovery in narration, or new ideas, are effects, and in them we can study the process in depth. Este texto reflexiona sobre la pragmática de la comunicación asociada al uso del sentido del lenguaje. Se plantea que el uso del lenguaje dirige la acción humana hacia determinados fenómenos semánticos, que a su vez, imprimen a las personas actitudes y capacidades. De esta manera, el lenguaje es una poderosa construcción de lo real, por su capacidad de constelar y captar formas, y generar actitudes humanas hacia las formas que desencadenan nuevas visiones de lo real. En este proceso, el avance en el conocimiento, el descubrimiento en las historias narradas y la generación de ideas son efectos, y en ellos podemos estudiar el proceso en profundidad. Ce texte réfléchit sur la pragmatique de la communication en relation avec l’use du langage et le sens. Il affirme que le langage et son utilisation dirige l’action humaine vers quelques phénomènes sémantiques, lesquels, à leur fois, motivent les attitudes et les capacités humaines. Ainsi, le langage est une vigoureuse construction du réel, par son capacité de constellation et de caution des formes et de créer des attitudes humanes vers nouvelles visions de la réalité. Dans ce procès, l’avance dans la connaissance et la science, la découverte de la narration, ou des nouvelles idées, son des effets, et avec eux nous pouvons étudier ce procès avec de la profondeur.

There is no doubt that the use of technology and online activities shape our real-world interactions, thoughts, behaviours, attitudes, and affects. We take this as an opportunity to reconsider the digital competencies of future teachers. Therefore, the present paper argues the relevance of virtual empathy to fostering learning in virtual learning environments. To achieve this goal, a correlational study was conducted. A number of 569 undergraduate students, Z generation representatives, were purposefully sampled. All the participants were Internet users, enrolled in a teaching degree program in a Romanian regular university. The subjects completed an online survey measuring the level of virtual empathy, socio-demographics, and media usage behaviours. The self-report scale that we applied to measure participants' empathy levels has proved reliability. The article depicts the results of the study and discusses them. The results indicate a complex relation between going online and real-world empathy. Video gaming affects the level of virtual and real-world empathy. However, none of the participants reported optimal levels of virtual empathy. The scores of virtual empathy are significantly lower than those computed for real-world empathy (both for male and female subjects). Nevertheless, correlational analysis showed a positive and statistically significant correlation between the two types of empathy. In addition, gender differences regarding virtual empathy are analysed. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the need to reshape the view of digital literacy in future teachers.

Universities tend to think that they know their students very well, but in real life conditions, many aspects are being left out of the consideration. This paper has set the main focus on the Information and Communication Technology based feedback systems for collection and analysis of student feedback who are mainly studying engineering sciences about everyday student life issues (such as study content, teachers, class schedule, satisfaction rates, environment, accessibility of resources and other). In the paper, authors propose a model of student feedback system that could intelligently address the gap between what student wants and thinks - what higher education institutions know about their students. Authors also review current offerings of the systems and addresses feedback as a part of quality assurance and demand driven University actions. With simple, but intelligent solution it would be possible to easily obtain and work with the information about neglected courses, personalized schedules, student voting, extracurricular activities, student research and more. Author also elaborates on perspective of social innovation that comes in a shape of new organizational form, where quality, decisions, and activities are bound to the continuous feedback that gets collected from the students. This would help Universities all across the globe to establish indisputable evidence for their actions. Challenge here lies within the responsibility of students to give correct, precise, honest and timely feedback. Findings of the paper are based on the literature review as well as five international expert discussions executed in the period of 2015-2017 in five different countries.

In this study we want to present the benefits that GPS monitoring system brings to sports performance. Global Positioning Systems or simply GPS is increasingly used in all sports disciplines, providing a wealth of information that coaches, athletes and, in particular strength and conditioning trainer, use to conduct the entire training process. It also helps us with effortlessness testing by providing real-time information. The GPS can be put in a special pocket of the vest or T-shirt of each player. The pocket is placed in the cervical area, to reduce as much as possible the chances of accidents during the match. With the help of this equipment (supplied with a software), for each player, we can determine five ranges of speed (0 - 6 km/h, 6 - 12 km/h, 12 - 18 km/h, 18 - 21 km /h and over 21 km/h), the distances covered, the highest and lowest pulse rates, the highest speed, the number of accelerations, the total distance covered at a speed higher than 21 km/h, the total number of collisions and the number of rough collisions (more powerful than 5G); by subtracting the latter from the former, we can find the number of moderate collisions. Seeing that we are the first owners of this kind of equipment, in Romanian rugby. ++++ In this study we want to present the benefits that GPS monitoring system brings to sports performance. Global Positioning Systems or simply GPS is increasingly used in all sports disciplines, providing a wealth of information that coaches, athletes and, in particular strength and conditioning trainer, use to conduct the entire training process. It also helps us with effortlessness testing by providing real-time information. The GPS can be put in a special pocket of the vest or T-shirt of each player. The pocket is placed in the cervical area, to reduce as much as possible the chances of accidents during the match. With the help of this equipment (supplied with a software), for each player, we can determine five ranges of speed (0 - 6 km/h, 6 - 12 km/h, 12 - 18 km/h, 18 - 21 km /h and over 21 km/h), the distances covered, the highest and lowest pulse rates, the highest speed, the number of accelerations, the total distance covered at a speed higher than 21 km/h, the total number of collisions and the number of rough collisions (more powerful than 5G); by subtracting the latter from the former, we can find the number of moderate collisions. Seeing that we are the first owners of this kind of equipment, in Romanian rugby.

The purpose of this study is to optimize the explosive strength of the lower limbs of the students in the University "Politehnica" of Bucharest mini-soccer representative team. The study was conducted over six months of training on a sample of 20 students (aged 18-21) of the first and second years of study who were randomly divided into two groups, the experimental group and control one.To determine the level of the explosive force in the two groups of subjects, both in the initial and final phases of the study we used the Myotest device (Sion, Switzerland) by applying the Countermovement Jump and Squat Jump tests. By using the Myotest wireless accelerometer, we could determine the folllowing variables: the jump height, power, strength, speed, and strength in speed regime. After the initial recording of the data, we elaborated programs of training of the experimental group, designed according to the game station, namely the goalkeeper and field players. The validation of the training programs, elaborated and introduced in the experimental group training, was based on the objective evaluation of the level of the explosive strength development of the lower limbs by means of the Myotest Pro device. The results obtained by the subjects in the experimental group compared to the control group showed at the end of the study statistically significant differences in all the tested parameters, the level of development of the explosive force registering superior progress in the experimental group. The conclusions drawn from the study completes the database with useful information for coaches, physical education and sports teachers and soccer players who want to improve their lower limbs explosive strength.

In order to become independent learners, the students must develop self-regulation learning competences. The self-regulated learning process is closely connected to the student, the environment and the teacher, and it has been scientifically proved that it can be of three types: internal, external or mixed; thus, the internal one can be associated with the goal or the intrinsic motivation of the student, the external one deals with external factors and the mixed one relates to both the student and the teacher equally. An external factor can be the learning environment, in this case, the e-learning system. Analysing the features that e-learning systems need to become an appropriate environment for the improvement of these competences in students, I have discovered a lack of representation in this research area. The paper introduces such a mechanism which is designed to develop the students' metacognitive competences, the ones connected to self-regulated learning, an aspect which has not been approached so far in the e-learning environment. The mechanism used for developing the self-regulatory competences is the feedback, offered automatically and periodically by the e-learning system. We consider feedback as being the communication between the system and the learner, derived from a task or a process and it is individual, adapted feedback. The feedback module was designed, implemented based on the eFront e-learning system and tested. The module is automatically executed, once the time for monitoring student activity has run up, which can be correlated with the periodicity of offering feedback automatically (in the case of the tested prototype - one week). Based on the monitoring time during execution, the database interrogation is performed and only the student tasks that were completed within that particular time interval are considered. Depending on student profile, the feedback messages to be sent to the student are created, both in the form of internal messages and in the form of e-mail or text message. For every feedback message sent, an entry is created in the database so as to allow for later monitoring of the students' evolution based on the feedback sent to them.

Children from excluded rural communities in Slovakia are at permanent risk of low school achievement, which is often related to social, language and digital exclusion. A closed circle of social exclusion and childhood poverty usually leads to school attrition, adult exclusion, and unemployment. One way how to break this circle is helping these children to succeed at school from pre-primary and primary education. As far as the language of instruction (Slovak language) is often not their first language, these children fail to fulfill school requirements very early. To develop their narrative competence in the Slovak language we adopted a set of materials for the teaching of Slovak as a second language (Hocus & Lotus narrative format programme, Taeschner, 2005). We prepared for teachers and children printed books and handouts as well as digital materials like audiobooks, videos, web-based colour books and handouts usable with an interactive board. These materials were available via the project website and can help children to develop both language and digital competences which may bridge the school achievement gap in later education. An experimental project was designed to verify the programme in 10 classes of children from 6 to 10 years of age (N = 104). The teachers were asked to evaluate the outcomes of using the digital materials in narrative format education and the further needs were analyzed. Based on these results further recommendations for socially disadvantaged children are discussed. This study is a part of the project KEGA 060UK-4/2017 Supporting narrative competence in the Slovak language for children from marginalized language environment - a set of teaching materials and of the project VEGA 1/0409/17 Teachers' personality and professional vision related to the dealing with challenging situations in the classroom during the transition into service.

In my personal history, it has been quite a while since my first experience with a group of foreigners that were required to learn Romanian as a foreign language during what is universally known as "the preparatory year". At the "Politehnica" University in Bucharest, there is a team of teachers that have constantly struggled for a gradual increase in both the number of foreign students enrolled in the preparatory year, the quality of the students trained, and the professional satisfaction of both teachers and students. As part of this team, in this paper, I intend to dwell upon the necessity to train students in the art of using the blended approach to learning, in accordance with their specific tasks at hand and general or occasional needs. For this purpose, I have devised a questionnaire that I have administered to the multicultural groups in the preparatory year I teach this academic year at "Politehnica", in an attempt to gather as much information as possible with regards to students' learning preferences in terms both of space, location, people and (e-)learning tools. In that way, I hope I will get an accurate answer to the question, "how do foreign students learn Romanian language best?"; what is more, the results of the survey will help me devise a more student-oriented curriculum, with optimal outcomes for all those involved in this teaching/ learning process. At the end of this paper, I expect I will be able to better understand the students' perception of the learning process as such, with all aspects deriving from that. Are language teachers expected to turn totally digital, keep close to their traditional teaching methods, or balance the two in a blended approach to learning?

The article is a study based on the e-Classes project (Ref. no.: 2017-1-RO01-KA202-037344), a project funded by the European Commission (under the Erasmus+ programme) for the years 2017-2019, which is being developed within an international partnership including institutions (schools, teacher training centres, non-governmental educational organisations and IT centres) from Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Romania. The project aims to help both VET teachers to revise and strengthen their professional profile and young people to increase their motivation to study science and improve their academic performance. The project has created a collection of videos illustrating basic scientific concepts from science school subjects, on which the project's method relies. The method, the flipped classroom, highly encourages a student-centred learning environment, maximizing students' participation in online and offline activities. By implementing the flipped classroom method teachers empower students to take the responsibility for their learning process and help them develop higher forms of cognitive skills by solving problems, debating or discussing controversial issues (application, analysis, synthesis, and/or evaluation). The paper presents the method, which uses the videos that teachers previously made as the main channel of content delivery, and discusses its benefits and challenges. The paper focuses on the findings of the flipped classroom experiment carried out with students studying at several vocational high schools in Iasi as well as the new roles that the participants, teachers, students and companies, may have in the educational process. It also gives details on how teachers can design their own flipped lessons, implement the flipped methodology and integrate ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and OER (Open Educational Resources) in traditional teaching.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the theories and models based on the exploration of ethical aspects of information technology in higher education. Based on the analysis of literature, three categories of theories have been identified in this field: general theories (the theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior, the theory of James Rest), decision making models (the model of Ferrell ?i Gresham, Hunt-Vitell theory (or model) of ethics about ethical decision making in general, Person- situation interactionist model, Bommer's ethical decision-making model, the model of Jones) and information technology models (IT ethical model, the model of unethical usage of information technology, the model of ethical behaviour in computer use, digital piracy attitude model, hypothetical and actual information security compliance models). The general theories have underpinned the later developed models, which have also begun to expand on IT-based models as well. The theory of reasoned action and The theory of planned behavior are the basis for the overwhelming majority of studies on the relationship between attitude, intention and unethical versus ethical behavior. Along with these models, the theories on the stages of moral development can also be considered as they have underpinned the construction of decision models (such as the interactive model) or have provided the foundation for studies related to teachers level of moral reasoning. The result of the analysis of these models will lead to the elaboration of a comprehensive model of factors influencing the attitudes of higher education teachers towards the unethical use of information technology.

Digital technology has already become a necessity of everyday life for any average person in developed countries. Starting from simple tasks like calculus or grammar, to more complex ones like navigation, simulations and appointments, nowadays we rely more and more on technology like smartphones, smartwatches and smart assistants. As this may seem to improve our life and help us in everyday tasks, it may have a negative impact in other areas like culture, education, focus, sustained brain-use or imagination. Libraries, a pillar of culture and education, lose popularity every day in favour of digital content and feeds. This article pioneers the design and the implementation of a modern cultural space to encourage reading and involvement in cultural activities through gamification in a mixed reality context. It is part of the Lib2Life research project that is being carried out by a strategic partnership between national libraries and universities to explore ways that can revitalize libraries and cultural heritage using digital technology. The paper presents a detailed solution design and the refining iterations on the initial concept of adding mixed reality game quests inside national libraries activity. The quests will get users to involve in captivating adventure games the will require them to use digital technology alongside real libraries or cultural events in order to solve the puzzle. Furthermore, the solution has a user-centered perspective, where the user can both access the content and contribute with his own content, that increases the potential to create virtual communities that benefit and contribute at the same time. This work is supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministery of Research and Innovation, CCCDI - UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.2-PCCDI-2017-0689 / ,,Lib2Life- Revitalizarea bibliotecilor si a patrimoniului cultural prin tehnologii avansate" / "Revitalizing Libraries and Cultural Heritage through Advanced Technologies", within PNCDI III.

Business Process Management (BPM) is a discipline involving any combination of modeling, automation, execution, control, measurement and optimization of business flow. BPM should take into account well-defined input data and a single set of output data. BPM platforms include a portal and a user dashboard, providing concept, simulation, rule definition, process execution, integration, monitoring, and optimization functions. The purpose of this paper is to develop a learning application for the management of banking processes and related databases, which can be used to model the business processes specific to the educational field in finance and banking (e-banking). The application has a general character and can be used to implement any kind of business process in the online learning environment. The model chosen is the relational organizational model, using SQL (Structured Query Language), in which tables have been defined for processes, flows, states, actions, and parameters. Also, two processes are defined within the application, each with a very simple flow, which highlights the concepts of business-case e-learning applied in banking management using BPM tools. As a motivation, the present work was born out of the need to improve the classical way of learning, by calling on the modeling and execution of e-banking specific processes through BPM. If the complexity of a targeted process increases greatly, it is hard to follow and understand in a learning activity. Thus, the process becomes difficult to modify and adapt to the needs of the beneficiary and when the number of processes involved becomes large any change or development of new functionality can take a long time. Thus, a structure that uses generic data types defining process-specific entities is a solution to improve how e-business processes are developed in order to make learning easier. In this respect, all processes modeled in an e-banking business learning platform have common structural components, while being differently parameterized according to each process. The technical analysis period is thus reduced, providing a permanent overview of existing processes. The structure designed accordingly is tested through a web application that connects to a database. The developed application is therefore a generic business process management learning tool, exemplified for e-banking processes, assumed by a case study: providing a bank credit to a client. The aim of the paper is to develop the most efficient software product for e-banking, thus generating a generic platform for assimilation of any type of process flow. The system architecture modularizes the entire project (developed in Visual Studio 2012) in four levels to ensure a clearest logical separation: - Data Access Level (configured using the Entity Framework with integrated Repository pattern) - Data Transfer Level (containing the code for each entity in the database); - Services Level (containing the database query code and maintaining the consistency of all information); - User Interface Level (containing HTML code combined with Razor syntax and deploying controllers via JavaScript functions included in the forms and dictating the entire system logic). In addition, three software development templates have been used to make the work of the developer easier and to make the learning product as efficient as possible. The calls to the database - the weakest link in any application in terms of performance - have been minimized to the highest degree. The BPM-based approach together with the related concepts - the graphic process representation (BPD: Business Process Diagrams), the specific modeling standard (BPMN: Business Process Management Notation) and the BPM rule engine - facilitate a transparent and simple management of all e-business specific processes and, at the same time, their easier learning. The visual process representation method (BPMN) is integrated into the web application through the jQuery technology and the BPM rule engine and the rules itself are included in web application controllers. The business necessity of the present work is customized in the goal of fluidization and dynamism applied in solving any defined process. Thus, in the case study approached, the client applying for a credit goes through the necessary steps in a shorter time, and the cost of analyzing his/her file by the bank is smaller because it automates many portions of the whole process, the involvement of the human factor being importantly reduced. Hence, compared to the conventional version, the corresponding learning process is much simplified and easier to assimilate. Even though a process has already been automated, it often needs to be calibrated and adapted to better manage the actual situations that occur. The developed learning tool can automate large sections of the e-business process using a decision-making module able to determine the next state, based on the user input parameters and the current status of the e-banking process. This module, integrated using the MVC environment, is customized by setting limits and adding new constraints. After the credit application is completed, its initial status is defined by the flow it belongs to. After the application runs through the entire stream and reaches a terminal status, no actions can be executed on it. However, the client is able to apply to another credit that will go through exactly the same flow pattern. The resulting learning application for banking-specific e-business processes is able to manage any type of processes and modify these processes through the developed BPMN interface. The original contributions of the paper are as follows: - Theoretical and practical design of the e-business learning platform database; - Developing the web application in ASP.NET along with the related front-end technologies: HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript; - Modeling and implementing as a case study the process of learning the flows of a banking process that highlights the concepts defined by the BPM methodology. The designed and developed application fulfills its intended purpose: supporting online learning to manage any type of business process with the ability to dynamically modify and adapt these processes through the built-in BPMN interface. The database is well structured, providing measures to support the growth of the platform's complexity, as well as measures to ensure its versatility in using for educational purposes in any e-business processes other than banking.

Overcoming the challenges of the 21st century multicultural society whose protagonists have to master an international language of communication such as English for work purposes in a multinational, for professional online communication with foreign interlocutors, we emphasize the necessity to encourage e-learning in controlled situations at university in the English language courses and seminars for engineering students in order to raise their awareness that focusing on grammar accuracy should be their top priority for advancing their knowledge of English for their future career, future life and, last but least, for their high quality well-rounded education. This paper argues for the importance of a particular and intense focus on e-learning for improving the engineering students' English grammar accuracy in the English language seminars in a technical university, emphasizing the following aspects: 1) e-learning plays a motivational role in developing the students' English language knowledge for work purposes in our 21st century multicultural society; 2) using and developing new internet resources for advancing the students' knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary are a must as a very good knowledge of English grammar results in logical, coherent and cohesive verbal and written discourses in English for work purposes. Having analysed the engineering students' needs for professional real-life and online communication in general and technical English for a future career, this paper shows that by encouraging e-learning in order to motivate the students to enhance their knowledge of English grammar by solving online grammar exercises, getting involved in communication activities on the online platforms, doing their homework, the students will develop their English speaking, reading, listening and writing skills, proving their linguistic competence in English. That is why this paper will present: 1) the e-learning incentives for improving the students' English language accuracy; 2) the engineering students' perspective on the importance of focusing on e-learning and blended learning for developing their English grammar knowledge in the English language seminars in a technical university; 3) a methodological approach to teaching advanced English grammar to engineering students by means of traditional learning and e-learning.

The study was conducted to develop and validate a multimedia electronic instructional package for teaching the Basic Electronic Devices component of Basic Technology at the Upper Basic Education level. It was a developmental research design, which involved the systematic study of designing, developing, and evaluating instructional programs, processes, and products that must meet criteria of internal consistency and effectiveness. Developmental research is particularly important in the field of instructional technology. The study therefore involved the analysis and description of the development process and the evaluation of the final product. The study was guided by the four research questions. The area for this is Kano state, North-Western Nigeria. Kano state lies within the Coordinates 110 30'N 80 30'E. The population for the study consists of 291 Basic Technology teachers, out of this, 10 Basic Technology teachers, 5 instructional technologist and 5 computer specialists were purposely selected for the evaluation of the package based on the four instruments for assessment. The findings of the study revealed that design procedures were followed in the development of the of Basic Electronic Devices Computer Instructional Package (BEDCIP); the BEDCIP have adequately covered the curriculum content of the subject matter; BEDCIP have met required instructional technology standards; and the BEDCIP have met the required technical standards. The study therefore recommends amongst others that Basic Technology teachers should be encouraged to prepare some aspects of their lessons in electronic form; the BEDCIP should be utilized for classroom instruction especially when teaching the Basic Electronic Devices component of Basic Technology; and that similar packages should be developed for the other aspects of Basic Technology curriculum.

Previous research showed that information quality, system quality, and service quality affect perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use for educational platforms (Tsai, YY., Chao, CM., Lin, HM. et al. Qual Quant, 2018); other authors debate on how they adopt and embed technology into their learning activities (Moreno V, Cavazotte F, Alves, I, 2017); students' perceptions regarding the usefulness and easiness of positive use for e-learning platforms is strongly influenced by their intention to effectively use those platforms and by students' cognitive absorption and self-efficacy, as well as by system interactivity and facilitating conditions. Our research is focused on empirical observation that suggests that there is a perceived difference between learners competencies and effectiveness regarding the on-line learning platforms than the regular frequency study programs. To this respect we focused on the same type and content bachelor degree study programme in 2 versions: distance learning using on-line learning platforms (with a small part of face-to-face tutorials) than full-time learning (based on face-to-face study courses and seminars). We were interested in perception and student consciousness on difference between those 2 students groups. The main assumption is that student identity is built around the perception on the learning environment and the perception on effectiveness in bachelor degree programs; so that, the easiness and level of satisfaction on learning on-line tools could be an impediment on understanding and choosing the distance learning programme than full-time learning programme. So, we put the two perception and identity student awareness is different in the 2 bachelor degree programmes; also, we put those identity awareness structures into the light of comparison so that conclusions towards quality perception and educational marketing would be more effective and valuable.

Virtual Reality is an emerging area and its core technologies advance rapidly. It is used mostly for training tools in many domains such as medicine, military, space, education and entertainment. The current paper is a state-of-the-art paper with the main goal of bringing people that are not visually impaired closer, from a social point of view, to the visually impaired community. The virtual environments are to be used as a point of interaction between these two categories of people. The strategy consists of developing highly interactive and immersive virtual environments, where multiple users need to work together in order to achieve that goal. The virtual environments are based on gamification principles and, in order to be consumer ready, the project needs to use consumer ready electronics and technology that is already used in the gaming industry or cost effective solutions. Virtual Reality is an emerging area and its core technologies advance rapidly. It is used mostly for training tools in many domains such as medicine, military, space, education and entertainment. The current paper is a state-of-the-art paper with the main goal of bringing people that are not visually impaired closer, from a social point of view, to the visually impaired community. The virtual environments are to be used as a point of interaction between these two categories of people. The strategy consists of developing highly interactive and immersive virtual environments, where multiple users need to work together in order to achieve that goal. The virtual environments are based on gamification principles and, in order to be consumer ready, the project needs to use consumer ready electronics and technology that is already used in the gaming industry or cost effective solutions.

In the paper there is presented an interactive software interface that was designed, programmed, realized and tested in our research activities. It is presented as a serious game, with application for laptop and tablet, to be very attractive for children having visual impairments, aimed for testing and training the visual function in terms of cognitive reaction. The interface it is going to be as attractive as possible for children, which would trigger interest in solving some tests as interesting games. In this way, via software interface implementation, as different game stages, with progressive difficulty degrees, each tested (or trained) child will be stimulated to gather a high score as possible, he could be rewarded according to it. The software interface aims, first of all, to test the visual function for children, by designing images at different levels of contrast, the images being familiar to the children. Giving scores for each stage of testing is automatically determined (running the interface), depending on the subject's response to image perception. For a more proper and complete testing, the interface is presented as three main stages in terms of game, namely for white, for yellow and for green background, these being considered pleasant, relaxing colors for the eye. Until now, the interface (as serious game) was used in case of three children aged between 6 and 9 years, with different visual problems (myopia, squint and amblyopia). It has been found that the software interface, as serious stimulating game, presented a high interest for all three children, and, in case of two of them, the daily resumption of the test (as training for visual function rehabilitation) for two weeks, has resulted in a slight improvement in the visual function. As a result, as further research activities, we intend to test the software interface on several children with sight impairments and, besides, there it is proposed also its subsequent use for activities type visual screening in schools and kindergartens.

Applying the Principles of Didactics to the E-learning teaching of Astronomy and Astrophysics Boldea Afrodita Liliana1, 2 1 Horia Hulubei National Institute for R&D in Physics and Nuclear Engineering M?gurele, 2University of Craiova, ROMANIA Abstract: The recent development of the Internet, associated with the new facilities for dissemination of scientific information in the world, have produced a deep change in the approach and the learning of some scientific fields. Teaching principles are general, systemic, normative and open concepts that underpin the attainment of educational objectives and govern the design, organization and conduct of teaching. In this paper it will exemplify the application of Principles of Didactics in the teaching of Computational Astronomy and Astrophysics. For perfect organization and development of the educational process, the teacher should observe and apply the correct principles of teaching with using modern teaching methods. The informal environment of the Observational Astronomy represents a significant reservoir of knowledge and can be a major source of innovation for new methods of teaching and learning sciences in schools and universities. In this context, the paper presents some informal e-learning methods, adapted for teaching and learning the Observational and the Computational Astronomy and tested recently on groups of students from University of Craiova. The finality of the experiment was to insert the students directly into some hot topics of astronomical research, starting only with the basically knowledge derived from astronomy and astrophysics popularisation sites and studying in small interactive autonomous groups. The role of the teacher was reduced to a long distance documentation selector and at a mediator between divergent approaches of different groups or different interpretation of astronomy notions. The methodology used was characteristically to the On-line Enriched (Driver) Model from E-learning, where the learning process is largely delivered on-line, with only rare periodically physical contact with a teacher. The approach, derived from Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) philosophy, included three steps: a formalization of some recent problems in Astronomy, with a continuous feed-back inside the testes group of students, an extended individual documentary research, based on the virtual lab principle, and a final analysis of the results of this investigation, when the students were asked to propose and sustain a planning of lessons in astronomy for teaching the studied concepts and facts to secondary level scholars.

Changes and progress of contemporary society, is one of the decisive factors regarding the way to address every single scientific field. In this context, the critical infrastructures protection, that became an international priority, brings to the fore the constant the need of adapting the education system and training of specialists in this field. On the other hand, the cultural heritage of the population living in the places that are affected by natural hazards such as: earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions or other natural calamities, and man-made disasters such as: fires, military conflicts, terrorist attacks and other industrial incidents compel the authorities to take the best measures to limit damages and casualties. Critical infrastructure protection is not an exclusive domain, its theoretical and practical background becoming a valuable resource for all security systems. For this, the critical infrastructure protection specialist is not just a system officer because he has the qualities of an analyst, planner, and decision maker. In order for these qualities to exist simultaneously, this implies designing management systems for education in accordance with the risks and vulnerabilities of contemporary society in order to create the possibility of materializing the negative events with a major impact. The challenge of this article is to draw attention of the decision makers on the need to transform the education systems designed to increase the level of population security culture and the role of the critical infrastructure protection specialist. In this regard, I point out that predicting the future of a society is very difficult and can be greatly improved by exploiting databases and using expertise in the field of critical infrastructure protection. Formalizing social security systems to achieve this objective involves the gradual transition from individual work to a new form of work, respectively the collaborative network. Based on these considerations, I anticipate the training of a critical infrastructure protection specialist in the context of new development of the national security systems/ defense systems against any threats or dangers.

The topic of Serious Games in engineering education, especially in universities have not been fully explored, even though Serious Games have been known as an educational method for a very long time. This article touches upon the issue of applying methods of Serious Games for future engineering education. This article presents an analysis of modern videogames, that can be recommended for engineering students and practices that these games use, that can be used for creating such kind of in-direct learning experience. Modern well-designed puzzle videogames enhance problem-solving skills, and in this article, particular methods of how to create a good game for effective learning are inspected. Serious Games can be greatly effective in studying such disciplines as programming and can be used to grant future engineers better understanding of how their theoretical knowledge can be applied on practice. It can be very beneficial for a student to be able to test out their skills and knowledge in a safe simulated environment that does not have as much stress, as an actual test. Games are often seen as not the best way of studying, but there are a great way to motivate students. The effectiveness of interactive eLearning for engineers is brought up to prove that gaming can be a very efficient practice and should be considered as a part of the university course. In the end of this article, there are suggestions of possible methodology for universities to create their own educational games on the base of existing engineering subjects, using best practices from modern videogames that are popular among university students demographic.

One of the modern times challenges, related to technological developments is the possibility of connecting concepts, such as Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning to the process of teaching foreign languages. Recent studies suggest that machine learning can be equipped with an intelligence, similar to the human one. More specifically, machines can be programmed, trained and developed for self-learning. This way, devices such as Google Home, Alexa or Siri, to mention only three of the most recent developments in the field of VA, can become a teacher's assistant during the language classes, and be able to completely transform the classroom. One of the most time-consuming activity, during language teaching, is the interaction with each individual student. The new artificial intelligence technologies can substitute the teacher, and pair with each student, creating a personal connection with them, helping them improve pronunciation, vocabulary, and can even have a conversation with the student. This way we can talk about an instant trainer, that can become a virtual peer for the student. Another benefit of the virtual assistant involvement in the language classes is the enormous amount of information, that can be accessed online, offering very personalised learning opportunities for the students, can be trained to repeat different parts of the lesson, so that students could benefit from a personalised learning plan. The present study tries to explain the process through which the virtual assistant can be trained in order to fulfil the classroom needs. The final aim is to understand how to train the virtual assistant, so that learners could take control of the learning process. Thus, the communicative method of language teaching and learning, where the student is let to discover concepts and understand grammatical structure will be accomplished in conjunction with the virtual assistant, while the teacher merely guides the class, focusses on the most appropriate assessment and ultimately facilitate the learning process.

The article is a study on the ZOE project, Zoonoses Online Education, (2016-1-RO01-KA203-024732), a European project funded by Erasmus+ programme for the years 2016-2019. The project has been developed within an international partnership including a wide range of institutions (Universities, medical and educational institutions, non-governmental educational organisations and IT centres) from Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Romania. The project promotes a better understanding of zoonoses and outlines the role of interdisciplinary research and technology enriched education where professionals can share their knowledge and experience. Further more, it also raises awareness about the importance of creating synergies between the human and veterinary medicine and encourages raise-awareness interventions related to identifying, monitoring and controlling malaria and dirofilariosis. The article focuses on the project's interdisciplinarity: the ZOE project encompasses medicine, veterinary practice, linguistic communication in six languages, internationalisation of higher education and technology enriched education. It also highlights the innovative character of its guidelines on infectious zoonotic diseases, malaria and dirofilariosis, which were once eradicated in Europe but have appeared again. The article describes the project's idea and main objectives, highlighting its focus and innovative activities. The study gives interesting insights into the innovative and ICT based teaching/ learning MOOC project course, which is supported by videos in six languages. The linguistic MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) created within the project aims to improve students' skills in zoonotic clinical procedures and medical communication and intercultural skills. The project addresses not only medical lecturers and language teachers teaching medical students but also medical students and the public at large.

Teaching foreign languages with online resources is a great source of creativity and innovation. For this, the Internet use in teaching has become a motivating factor among students. Teaching language competences - listening, reading, writing and speaking - is enriched with the help of online resources used as valuable input for language lessons. The use of internet resources to teach English for professional communication offers students the possibility to become exposed to realia, that is, to valuable real situations and contexts of interaction. It is one thing to teach students tips about effective interviews, which can be passive and boring to a certain point, and another thing to show them good and bad examples of these. In this way, students become motivated and involved in a dynamic process of thoughtful decisions and understanding. This article shows the importance of teaching English for professional communication with online resources as a motivating factor which promotes understanding and learning by discovery. In the main body of this article we are providing a lesson scenario based on internet resources and the motivation for our choices. The lesson covers various aspects of the job interview context intended to make students aware of their own performance in a similar situation. As regards the content of a job interview, students will experience typical questions and answers comparing their theoretical knowledge of how an interview should be with real life performances that are very often far from the ideal. In this way, students can evaluate the interviewees and learn from their good and bad "moves". As far as the framework of a job interview is concerned, students are also exposed to non verbal communication, rules of behavior, register, dress code, aspects which are highly influential in determining the outcome of a job interview. Therefore, such an e-lesson may be considered an extremely useful and pleasant experience that prepares students for the complexity of a real life job interview situation.

The contribution of this study to the theoretical knowledge is that it compares between volleyball vertical jumps (VJ) without reference to the ball, to volleyball VJ with reference to the ball. This comparison was made possible, for the first time, by the VERT Wearable Jump Monitor (Mayfonk Athletic, Florida, USA), that enables to measure any VJ, anywhere on volleyball court, for up to eight volleyball players at once. This study was conducted at the end of the data collection of the study "The effect of repeated performances of yo-yo intermittent endurance test/run level 1 (YYIE1) preceding to an immediate VJ training, on chronic enhancement of VJ among volleyball players" (intervention program). The study did not find difference between volleyball block jump with or without reference to the ball. However, it found that volleyball attack jump without reference to the ball, was significantly higher than volleyball attack jump with reference to the ball. In addition, the study found that volleyball players that underwent an intervention program for VJ enhancement demonstrated significantly higher volleyball VJ, in all four parameters, than volleyball players that did not undergo this program. The originality of the VJ training in the intervention program was that each volleyball player was required to jump eighty VJs to the maximum height she or he could. This in order to create stimulation for VJ enhancement. The VERT system could supply the data, regarding to VJ height, for the researchers and for each one of the players simultaneously, for up to eight players at once.

new world of marketing is constantly evolving and under these conditions, managers of modern companies are acting through training to adapt and manage the changes that take place in the digital world. Under the new conditions of the digital economy, company trainers are working to train managers and marketers in order to adapt to the demands of modern, highly complex businesses that evolve at a faster rate. Consequently, they act in line with the revolutions in both manufacturing and software industries when new digital marketing strategies are introduced. Therefore, the instrumentation of Agile methodology in digital marketing will eventually lead to adequate business dynamics, as well as to an expected cost reduction within the companies, according to their missions and business goals. Furthermore, in the era of digital marketing, the company managers emphasize the continued professional development of the staff, in order to capitalize on the opportunities offered by embedded digital environments in a constantly evolving and transforming world. The need for educational and training actions for the digital marketing companies' staff involves the development of specific strategies centered on the acquisition of new skills by staff members for the use of new technologies appropriate to modern marketing processes in the digital economy. Therefore, the education and training mentioned above are intended to enable the effective integration of the digital channels into appropriate marketing activities, which is considered a major challenge for most of the companies. To this end, training is about implementing some digital transformation programs in order to eliminate errors and nonconformities. In this respect, it starts from the elaboration of the integrated collaborative planning, at the level of each company, in order to perform the efficient digital marketing campaigns. Through this communication, we will try to highlight the increasing intentions of companies to enhance the training of their digital marketing staff, in order to connect them with current and potential consumers, quickly and efficiently, for the increased capitalization and continued development of their business potential.

Aggressive behavior is a common social issue encountered in children, with high impact on social relations and academic performances. Research links attributional bias to aggression, suggesting that individuals with high level of aggression tend to interpret ambiguous situations as being hostile. Empirical evidence suggests that attributional bias can be modified. With promising results, recent studies starts using Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation (CBM-I) to modify this biases. Besides this, one of the most common interventions in terms of aggressive behavior in children and adolescents is Social Skills Training (SST). A combined intervention using Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation and Social Skills Training can be an effective approach to aggressive behavior, by focusing on both of its cognitive and behavioral components. The aim of this paper is to propose an evidence-based gamified intervention for children with aggressive behavior. The intervention consists in a mobile phone application focused both on modifying the biases underlying the distorted interpretation and training of social skills, in order to decrease aggressive behavior, and increase social adaptation of the children. Combined treatments are widely used in psychotherapy and, in terms of aggressive behavior this approach may provide promising results with long-term changes. In our research, Social Skills Training component is oriented on developing adequate social competence, while Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation, will help children interpret ambiguous social situations as less hostile, therefore they will be able to engange in a more adaptive response to others. Theoretical and practical implications for the educational environment will be detailed.

Online technologies are being extensively used nowadays in our personal life, as well as in our work life. In the continuously expanding industries which develop software extensively, one of the many practices impacted by the online environment for some time now is project management. While training to become a project manager, one can use traditional ways such as attending to university or academic courses, learning from hard copies or digital versions of courses and books, but also modern ways such as e-learning, using dedicated online courses, platforms, tools and software. Some of these resources are free of charge, but others are paid and some are quite expensive, especially if they are accredited and lead to professional certification. That's why not many project management students afford certifications and would rather try to get certified, if possible, after getting employed. However, some of the medium sized to large companies out there developing software, such as IT companies or banks, invest a lot in training their employees and have a generous training budget for each employee, allowing them to take the desired courses and certifications. But what are the main e-learning resources, software and online tools currently used by project managers in the software industry? This paper is a literature survey based on recent articles and data that aims to answer the previous question and to discuss the improvements brought by online courses, tools and resources in project managers' quality of work and life, thus helping them to achieve a better work-life balance.

This paper describes the ways of preventing and detecting plagiarism in the contemporary time among students in the licensing process (in which online we take more time and resure than offline, traditional books and magazines in a printed form on paper). How can we deal with the current challenges of the plague tendency and how we can show originality in everything we do, possibly "post on the wall" online. First of all, avoiding plagiarism is achieved by recognizing frank the contribution of the author (s) who formed the basis of inspiring your own creation, and this can be achieved through the proper use of existing citation methods. Therefore, we intend to present the advantages and disadvantages of different citation styles of information sources used by students, including: APA Style, MLA Style, Chicago Style, Turabian Style, ISO 690 Style; as well as citation methods, namely: citations in the text, page footers, bibliographic references, web publications, online video, etc. And last but not least, we present software tools to support and simplify the release of information sources, including: EndNote, Reference manager; those with open access and those for a fee. One of the greatest benefits of globalization is to simplify and facilitate access to information and automatically identify student plagiarism in the development of licensing work. Identifying plagiarism through various software continues to challenge IT specialists in close collaboration with the university environment. This goal desires to eliminate as far as possible the plagiarized works and to open the gates of the original authors through the contribution to knowledge. Romanian universities have begun to grasp the need to align with global university education, and as a result of various exchanges of experiences, they have begun to test and even acquire various software to identify and prevent plagiarism among students.

The omnipresence of the Internet and computers has transformed communication, providing access to unimaginable information and resources. This has led to the definition of a new paradigm of the knowledge society in which education plays a central role. The phenomenon of globalization imposed the concept of mobility of access to information and education. In order to synchronize with the pace of technical and socio-economic development, educational institutions should abandon the exclusivity of using the formal, classic face to face of education and orientate themselves to the mobility needs of the users of the educational services. One of the most used modalities by educational institutions is to address education through the systemic framework of eLearning, with all its tools, media, technologies and rules. The complexity of tools has grown enormously, and those who acquire and use technology are no longer just ICT professionals, but also educational content creators, managers, teachers and students. These rapid changes have left many behind those who have failed to adapt and document properly. "Informatics restores not only the unity of pure and applied mathematics, concrete technique and abstract mathematics, but also that of the natural sciences, of man and of society. Rebalancing abstract and formal concepts and reconciling art with science, not only in the human science, where they were always reconciled, but also in their philosophy. "[1] Temporarily, collaborative tools allow communication between participants synchronously or asynchronously. Synchronous communication, often called a conference, takes place in real time, where participants are present online at the same time. Synchronic communication channels can include chatting, sharing applications, tabular, audio or video conferences, etc.

Competently organized personnel management system helps to achieve the company business-objectives. The best result is achieved when using the training systems in the staff management. Among approaches to the corporate education management recently the distance (electronic) learning technology is becoming more relevant. Large companies with extensive branch networks solve the problem of employee training in the classical way: they conduct internal classroom training or delegate specialists to seminars conducted by training organizations. However, these methods are not always effective for a number of reasons, including the cost of classroom training, a high degree of staff rotation in a number of sectors of the economy, the incompetence of third - party specialists in the specifics of a particular company. The best option for improving the personnel of the organization on the basis of its training is the introduction of the enterprise distance learning system. To date, the practice of corporate education has not developed a unified approach to the use of the term "distance learning". Along with the concept of "distance learning" (DL), the concept of "electronic distance learning" (EDL) or " distance electronic learning" (DEL) is often used. At the same time, in any of these cases we are talking about the practice of corporate training using information databases using information technology and telecommunications networks, involving indirect interaction of the subjects of the educational process. This article discusses the following issues: implementation of the corporate learning management system based on the distance technologies, diagnostics of problems and identification of training needs, management of the staff professional development through the distance learning. The conclusion is made that the properly structured process or training employees fits naturally into the personnel management system: if the system of personnel training is focused on development of those skills that enhance work efficiency, it directly or indirectly contributes to achievement of the company business-objectives and professional goals of employees

The number of vehicles is constantly increasing and one of the challenges is efficient parking management. For this case, object recognition is required to detect and recognize cars, pedestrians, bicycles and obstacles in an indoor car parking. Cars must be recognized in order to indicate to drivers where to park their car, providing a semantic web of things. Vehicle recognition including car registration number must be followed by tracking, i.e., tracking the car in all subsequent image frames even if the image is partially obturated. Pedestrians should also be recognized for avoiding accidents, as well as being aware of different static objects/obstacles. This paper deals with object recognition through the Deep Learning (DL) method with Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), this being the newest and most efficient method based on our results in project VIRTUOSE (Virtualized Video Services). The paper briefly introduces CNN, image databases, and performance metrics. Then, several collaborative web methods/programs for object recognition are analyzed and compared, namely YOLO (You only look once), Google Cloud Vision, Advanced Convolutional Neural Networks in the Tensorflow framework and OpenCV. We analyze how programs detect and recognize multiple types of objects in an image or video, in real time. In case of video analysis on a PC / laptop, it is necessary that it has an NVIDIA module with several GPUs. The comparison refers especially to the precision of recognition, image resolution, the computation time (real-time response), viewpoint variations. The novelty of the work is the special structure of CNN suitable to the parking management application.

This research has focused on the adjustment of Romanian migrant pupils learning in host country schools. The sample included a total of 102 Romanian migrant pupils, 40 male and 62 female. They attend different schools in countries such as Spain, Italy and Belgium (i.e. the main countries of destination for Romanian pupils). They have been contacted through the Institute for Romanian Language and attend elective classes in Romanian language, culture and civilization supported by the Romanian Ministry of National Education. Pupils' adjustment was investigated by means of a questionnaire consisting of four subscales: linguistic adaptation, cultural adaptation, school adjustment and teacher-pupil relationship. The findings confirm that while Romanian migrant pupils have a satisfactory level of educational and linguistic adjustment, the social adjustment is less satisfactory. We also obtained correlation between linguistic adaptation and school adjustment, linguistic adaptation and social adaptation, linguistic adaptation and teacher-pupils relationship, school adjustment and social adaptation, school adjustment and teacher-pupils relationship, social adaptation and teacher-pupils relationship. We also identified a significant difference between Italy and Spain (countries with the highest score) for linguistic adaptation. This study is a part of a larger research in which the empirical studies are interrelated. The first one investigates the adaptation of Romanian migrants pupils to the school abroad, through the teachers in the respective schools. The second study researches several dimensions of the Pupils' effective, real, situational adaption to a new educational context. This research resulted in a corpus of useful knowledge, most of which confirm the validity of the initial hypotheses and may become a supporting material for all the players involved in the proposed issue - pupils, their parents, teachers, and the school in the host-country.

The use of cutting-edge technologies such as the smartphones, smart bracelets, cloud computing, internet of things (IoT), e-Learning, and m-Health, as well as mobile applications has begun to increase in healthcare sectors, due to factors such as low cost, ease of use, mobility, multiple uses, and being reliable. This encouraged the international institutions, particularly health institutions, to increase their investment in healthcare technologies. We aim to develop a new specialized platform, an easy-to-use learning management system called Medical social media system, in order to improve the healthcare services in the Iraqi environment. It would be a social media system which can be used by users from their personal computer or Android devices in order to provide knowledge regarding users such as patients, medical students, new doctors and medical experts in the Iraqi health sector, where infrastructure needs to significantly develop, and medical information needs to be shared among medical workers as well as people in general. In this paper, we present a quantitative research by data collected from survey questionnaires, which are related to e-Learning and Medical social media system, in order to identify the main factors that influence the interest and the interaction of the medical specialists, new doctors, laboratory analysts, pharmacist, students of medical and biologic groups and patients interested in the health e-Learning and the cutting-edge health technologies through interactive Medical social media systems. Their interest and recommendations are taken into account while building an interactive specialized platform for medical social media system in the Iraqi environment.

The era of powerful technology progress raises the question of digital literacy of population. The lack of knowledge and basic skills within the majority of potential users among common people slows down the development of the IT industry as whole as far as their products are focused on consumers. It is impossible to educate IT specialists, engineers or any other highly qualified professionals without paying appropriate attention to digital literacy of population. Due to "mass start" of daily IT usage among the population of different age group it comes to influence the informational sphere as well as the learning process as it is the significant part of the education. So there appears a special category of users that may be called as a digital-mass-consumer-user. This category of users is mainly oriented on consuming digital services but is not aware of digital competence. Thus, while developing modern consumer-oriented technologies, it is necessary to improve the level of general public's digital literacy. Extend Centres could conduct such type of courses for general public. The aim of the article is to study the digital literacy as a significant component for modern education process and in particular for specialists in engineering. There were used the method of analysis, interview survey and comparison. Special attention is given to digital etiquette and digital security. These components of digital literacy acquire far too much concern while digital literacy as a phenomenon of both modern digital and social environments affects industrial, economical, social and other areas of life.

The purpose of this study was to create a system of knowledge representation in information systems most similar to the model of human knowledge representation. The problem of plain arithmetic operations and numerals representation was chosen as a main goal. Knowledge representation in general terms was chosen for the current problem as a first goal. For this purpose psychological theories and experiments about human knowledge representation models were overviewed. As en example, the "violin" experiment was given. This experiment confirms the idea of information representation in human's mind as a net of entities connected by associative relations. As an analogue of such structure in information technologies world semantic networks were considered. This structure was chosen because semantic networks use the same idea of knowledge representation as a graph. Ontology as a pattern of semantic networks construction is also considered. Following this pattern edges and their relations are joined into classes with common properties and behavior. Finally, technical and psychological approaches were compared to chose the most correct way to represent information as humans do. But the problem of numerals representation in human's mind also has its own psychological problems. Such concepts of numbers for adults and children differences were shown. Requirements for this concept were specified, such as: the measure and the sequence of information representation. Guided by this rules the concept of Church numerals was chosen. This concept exists in lambda calculus, which base ideas were described in the paper as well. Church numbers approach in terms of semantic networks was also given. For calculations simplification the addition table idea was used and applied with semantic networks context. But a human usually uses place-value notation when big numbers are required. And Church numbers use too much memory in this situation (an addition table grows too fast with maximum of number defined in Church notation). So the place-value notation which uses Church numbers as digits and as a position marker was given.

eLearning: This term was put into practice in 1998 by Jay Cross, the integrated Internet time group. Initially, elearningeuropa.info, a website of European e-learning programs that has been defined as the use of technologies, an Internet for improving the quality of learning by facilitating access to sources and services, was launched. The European Community also chose the "E-learning-Design for Tomorrow's Education" program on May 24, 2000, and has become a viable alternative to traditional education methods today, so it has been adopted by many universities, in particular due to the possibility of benefiting from continuous training or its benefits in various organizations. From a historical point of view, courses, tutorials and labs are delivered through conventional methods of providing technical education. With the development of open and distance communication technology and information, learning for technical education becomes reality. This online environment offers an incredible number of opportunities and facilities for both students and teachers, leading to a prosperous relationship of communication and collaboration between both camps, thus assimilating knowledge becoming more accessible, students being intimately connected with technology. At the same time, this concept has greatly contributed to lowering the cost of education and improving the education system, which is why in this article I conducted an analysis among a target group of 120 students of higher education institutions in Romania, for to identify their attitudes towards the use of eLearning platforms in the learning process, and also to conduct a qualitative research among 13 teachers in higher education institutions to identify the usefulness of eLearning platforms from both perspectives.

This study investigates and evaluates the effects of ESP training with the participants using Canvas- a virtual classroom and an actual one in parallel at a technical university in Vietnam. To achieve this, the study examined the students' perception on the use of Canvas, their reported difficulties in learning via Canvas, the effects of the training upon them, and their use and reflections on the use of virtual classroom. 60 third-year ESP students at the technical university were recruited. Participants were split into three groups: the pilot group (G1), the experimental group (G2) and the control group (G3). The research was implemented in an ESP training course of ten 180-minute classes, each class consisting of group discussion and ESP training with the use of virtual classroom. Quantitative data were collected from G2 and G3 on ESP ability using pre-tests and post-tests. Participants' reflective reports, supplemented by the researcher's journal were also collected as qualitative data. The quantitative results reveal a statistically significant difference in ESP performance between G2 and G3. The overall improvement in all ESP skills were recorded over the period of training, while G3's improvement was negligible. Qualitative data reveals the difficulties encountered by the participants during the training (such as the lack of technical skills, interrupted internet connection), their positive feedback on and interest in the training using canvas. The results of the study are discussed in terms of its contribution to research in this area and to the teaching and learning of ESP in the Vietnamese context.

Product quality is a complex and dynamic attribute because it is deeply linked with the customer's diversified requirements. The quality attributes of a product are defined during the manufacturing process, but their effects are felt during the usage of the product. In order to ensure the quality of a product, one has to pay close attention to many details, starting with the design stage. This involves a careful and deep analysis of the details of the model, which are recorded in a sketch (freestyle or technical), photo or in a video file. Through this analysis, the designer establishes the overall dimensions of the model (lengths and widths), volumes, the number and shape of its parts, the type of materials from which the garment must be made and plans its manufacturing process sequences. In general, the design process of any type of consumer goods begins by drawing a detailed and complex 2D sketch. This latter is known as a technical drawing, and it is an essential element of the garment worksheet, due to the fact that it contains data describing all the details of the model: the shape of its pieces, colours or motifs, the type and position of different accessories, etc. Kaledo is a Lectra program which offers proper tools for drawing such sketches and allows the user to create innovative fabric designs and styles in a short time. In this paper, the authors present a tutorial about how to select and use Kaledo functions for creating sketches, with suggestions for different combinations of colours or motifs. This tutorial is suitable for any person working in the field of clothing design who has the permission to use this program.